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It is a general principle that, to be modified, an object must
be opposed in faculty, and in quality to the forces that enter
and act upon it.
Thus where heat is present, the change comes by something that
chills, where damp by some drying agency: we say a subject is
modified when from warm it becomes cold, from dry wet.
A further evidence is in our speaking of a fire being burned out,
when it has passed over into another element; we do not say that
the Matter has been burned out: in other words, modification
affects what is subject to dissolution; the acceptance of
modification is the path towards dissolution; susceptibility to
modification and susceptibility to dissolution go necessarily
together. But Matter can never be dissolved. What into? By what
process?
Still: Matter harbours heat, cold, qualities beyond all count; by
these it is differentiated; it holds them as if they were of its
very substance and they blend within it- since no quality is
found isolated to itself- Matter lies there as the meeting ground
of all these qualities with their changes as they act and react
in the blend: how, then, can it fail to be modified in keeping?
The only escape would be to declare Matter utterly and for ever
apart from the qualities it exhibits; but the very notion of
Substance implies that any and every thing present in it has some
action upon it.
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